The Layton Court Mystery

by Anthony Berkeley

  Mrs Plant stared at him in amazement.

  ‘But Major Jefferson never came in at all!’ she exclaimed. ‘What ever makes you think that?’

  It was Roger’s turn to be astonished.

  ‘Do I understand you to say that Jefferson never came in at all while you were in the library with Stanworth?’ he asked.

  ‘Good gracious, no,’ Mrs Plant replied emphatically. ‘I should hope not! Why ever should he?’

  ‘I – I don’t really know,’ Roger said lamely. ‘I thought he did. I must have been mistaken.’ In spite of the unexpectedness of her denial, he was convinced that Mrs Plant was telling the truth; her surprise was far too genuine to have been assumed. ‘Well, what happened?’

  ‘Nothing. I – I implored him not to be so hard and to be content with what I had paid him and give me back the evidence he’d got, but – ’

  ‘Where did he keep the evidence, by the way? In the safe?’

  ‘Yes. He always carried the safe about with him. It was supposed to be burglar-proof.’

  ‘Was it open while you were there?’

  ‘He opened it to put my jewels in before I went.’

  ‘And did he leave it open, or did he lock it up again?’

  ‘He locked it before I left the room.’

  ‘I see. When would that be?’

  ‘Oh, past one o’clock, I should say. I didn’t notice the time very particularly. I was feeling too upset.’

  ‘Naturally. And nothing of any importance occurred between his – his ultimatum and your departure upstairs?’

  ‘No. He refused to give way an inch, and at last I left off trying to persuade him and went up to bed. That is all.’

  ‘And nobody else came in at all? Not a sign of anybody else?’

  ‘No; nobody.’

  ‘Humph!’ said Roger thoughtfully. This was decidedly disappointing; yet somehow it was impossible to disbelieve Mrs Plant’s story. Still, Jefferson might have come in later, having heard something of what had taken place from outside the room. At any rate, it appeared that Mrs Plant herself could have had no hand in the actual murder, whatever provocation she might have received.

  He decided to sound her a little farther.

  ‘In view of what you’ve told me, Mrs Plant,’ he remarked rather more casually, ‘it seems very extraordinary that Stanworth should have committed suicide, doesn’t it? Can you account for it in any way?’

  ‘No, I certainly can’t. It’s inexplicable to me. But, Mr Sheringham, I am so thankful! No wonder I fainted when you told us after breakfast. I suddenly felt as if I had been let out of prison. Oh, that dreadful, terrible feeling of being in that man’s power! You can’t imagine it; or what an overwhelming relief it was to hear of his death.’

  ‘Indeed I can, Mrs Plant,’ Roger said with intense sympathy. ‘In fact, what surprises me is that nobody should ever have killed him before this.’

  ‘Do you imagine that people never thought of that?’ Mrs Plant retorted passionately. ‘I did myself. Hundreds of times! But what would have been the use? Do you know what he did – in my case, at any rate, and so in everyone else’s, I suppose? He kept the documentary evidence against me in a sealed envelope addressed to my husband! He knew that if ever he met with a violent death the safe would be opened by the police, you see; and in that case they would take charge of the envelope, and presumably many other similar ones, and forward them all to their destinations. Just imagine that! Naturally nobody dared kill him; it would only make things worse than before. He used to gloat over it to me. Besides, he had always a loaded revolver in his hand when he opened the safe, in my presence at any rate. I can tell you, he took no chances. Oh, Mr Sheringham, that man was a fiend! Whatever can have induced him to take his own life, I can’t conceive; but believe me, I shall thank God for it on my bended knees every night as long as I live!’

  She sat biting her lip and breathing heavily in the intensity of her feelings.

  ‘But if you knew the evidence was kept in the safe, why weren’t you frightened when it was being opened by the inspector?’ Roger asked curiously. ‘I remember glancing at you, and you certainly didn’t seem to be in the least perturbed about it.’

  ‘Oh, that was after I’d had his letter, you see,’ Mrs Plant explained readily. ‘I was before, of course; terribly frightened. But not afterwards, though it did seem almost too good to be true. Hullo! isn’t that the lunch bell? We had better be going indoors, hadn’t we? I think I have told you all you can want to know.’ She rose to her feet and turned towards the house.

  Roger fell into step with her.

  ‘Letter?’ he said eagerly. ‘What letter?’

  Mrs Plant glanced at him in surprise. ‘Oh, don’t you know about that? I thought you must do, as you seemed to know everything. Yes, I got a letter from him saying that for certain private reasons he had decided to take his own life, and that before doing so he wished to inform me that I need have no fears about anything, as he had burnt the evidence he held against me. You can imagine what a relief it was!’

  ‘Jumping Moses!’ Roger exclaimed blankly. ‘That appears to bash me somewhat sideways!’

  ‘What did you say, Mr Sheringham?’ asked Mrs Plant curiously.

  Roger’s dazed and slightly incoherent reply is not recorded.

  chapter twenty – four

  Mr Sheringham Is Disconcerted

  Roger sat through the first part of lunch in a species of minor trance. It was not until the necessity for consuming a large plateful of prunes and tapioca pudding, the two things besides Jews that he detested most in the world, began to impress itself upon his consciousness, that the power of connected thought returned to him. Mrs Plant’s revelation appeared temporarily to have numbed his brain. The one thing which remained dazzlingly clear to him was that if Stanworth had written a letter announcing his impending suicide, then Stanworth could not after all have been murdered; and the whole imposing structure which he, Roger, had erected, crumbled away into the sand upon which it had been founded. It was a disturbing reflection for one so blithely certain of himself as Roger.

  As soon as lunch was over and the discussion regarding trains and the like at an end, he hurried Alec upstairs to his bedroom to talk the matter over. It is true that Roger felt a certain reluctance to be compelled thus to acknowledge that he had been busily unearthing nothing but a mare’s nest; but, on the other hand, Alec must know sooner or later, and at that moment the one vital necessity from Roger’s point of view was to talk. In fact, the pent-up floods of talk in Roger’s bosom that were striving for exit had been causing him something very nearly approaching physical pain during the last few minutes.

  ‘Alexander!’ he exclaimed dramatically as soon as the door was safely shut. ‘Alexander, the game is up!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Alec asked in surprise. ‘Have the police got on the trail now?’

  ‘Worse than that. Far worse! It appears that old Stanworth was never murdered at all! He did commit suicide, after all.’

  Alec sat down heavily in the nearest chair. ‘Good Lord!’ he exclaimed limply. ‘But what on earth makes you think that? I thought you were so convinced that it was murder.’

  ‘So I was,’ Roger said, leaning against the dressing table. ‘That’s what makes it all the more extraordinary, because I really am very seldom wrong. I say it in all modesty, but the fact is indisputable. By all the laws of average, Stanworth ought to have been murdered. It really is most inexplicable.’

  ‘But how do you know he wasn’t?’ Alec demanded. ‘What’s happened since I saw you last to make you alter your mind like this?’

  ‘The simple fact that Mrs Plant received a note from old Stanworth, saying that he was going to kill himself for private reasons of his own or something.’

  ‘Oh’

  ‘I can tell you, it knocked me upside down for the minute, Anything more unexpected I couldn’t have imagined. And the trouble is that I don’t see how we can possibly get round it. A note l
ike that is a very different matter to that statement.’

  ‘You know, I’m not sure that I’m altogether surprised that something like this has turned up,’ Alec said slowly. ‘I was never quite so convinced by the murder idea as you were. After all, when you come to look at all the facts of the case, although they certainly seemed to be consistent with murder, were no less consistent with suicide, weren’t they?’

  ‘So it appears,’ Roger said regretfully.

  ‘It was simply that you’d got the notion of murder into your head – more picturesque, I suppose – and everything had to be construed to fit it, eh?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘In fact,’ Alec concluded wisely, ‘it was an idée fixe, and everything else was sacrificed to it. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Alexander, you put me to shame,’ Roger murmured.

  ‘Well, anyhow, that shows you what comes of muddling in other people’s affairs,’ Alec pointed out severely. ‘And it’s lucky you hit on the truth before you made a still bigger idiot of yourself.’

  ‘I deserve it all, I know,’ Roger remarked contritely to his hair-brush.

  It was Alec’s turn to be complacent now, and he was taking full advantage of it. As he lay back leisurely in his chair and smoked away placidly, he presented a perfect picture of ‘I told you so!’ Roger contemplated him in rueful silence.

  ‘And yet – !’ he murmured tentatively, after a few moments’ silence.

  Alec waved an admonitory pipe.

  ‘Now, then!’ he said warningly.

  Roger exploded suddenly. ‘Well, say what you like, Alec,’ he burst out, ‘but the thing is dashed queer! You can’t get away from it. After all, our inquiries haven’t resulted in nothing, have they? We did establish the fact that Stanworth was a blackmailer. I forgot to tell you that, by the way. We were perfectly right; he had been blackmailing Mrs Plant, the swine, and jolly badly, too. Incidentally, she hadn’t the least idea that his death might be anything else than suicide, and Jefferson didn’t come into the library while she was there; so I was wrong in that particular detail. I’m satisfied she was telling the truth, too. But as for the rest – well, I’m dashed if I know what to think! The more I consider it, the more difficult I find it to believe that it was suicide, after all, and that all those other facts could have been nothing but mere coincidences. It isn’t reasonable.’

  ‘Yes, that’s all very well,’ Alec said sagely. ‘But when a fellow actually goes out of his way to write a letter saying that – ’

  ‘By Jove, Alec!’ Roger interrupted excitedly. ‘You’ve given me an idea. Did he write it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Why, mightn’t it have been typed? I haven’t seen the thing yet, you know, and when she mentioned a letter it never occurred to me that it might not be a handwritten one. If it was typed, then there’s still a chance.’ He walked rapidly towards the door.

  ‘Where are you going to now?’ Alec asked in surprise.

  ‘To see if I can get a look at this blessed letter,’ Roger said, turning the handle. ‘Mrs Plant’s room is down this passage, isn’t it?’

  With a quick glance up and down the passage, Roger hurried along to Mrs Plant’s bedroom and tapped on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ said a voice inside.

  ‘It’s me, Mrs Plant,’ he replied softly. ‘Mr Sheringham. Can I speak to you a minute?’

  There came the sound of rapid footsteps crossing the floor and Mrs Plant’s head appeared at the door.

  ‘Yes?’ she asked, not without a certain apprehension. ‘What is it, Mr Sheringham?’

  ‘You remember that letter you mentioned this morning? From Mr Stanworth, I mean. Have you still got it, by any chance, or have you destroyed it?’

  He held his breath for her reply.

  ‘Oh, no. Of course I destroyed it at once. Why?’

  ‘Oh, I just wanted to test an idea. Let me see.’ He thought rapidly. ‘It was pushed under your door or something, I suppose?’

  ‘Oh, no. It came by post.’

  ‘Did it?’ said Roger eagerly. ‘You didn’t notice the postmark, did you?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I did. It seemed so funny that he should have taken the trouble to post it. It was posted from the village by the eight-thirty post that morning.’

  ‘The village, was it? Oh! And was it typewritten?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Roger held his breath again. ‘Was the signature written or typewritten?’

  Mrs Plant considered.

  ‘It was typewritten, as far as I remember.’

  ‘Are you sure of that?’ Roger asked eagerly.

  ‘Ye-es, I think so. Oh, yes; I remember now. The whole thing was typewritten, signature and all.’

  ‘Thank you very much, Mrs Plant,’ Roger said gratefully. ‘That’s all I wanted to know.’

  He sped back to his own room.

  ‘Alexander!’ he exclaimed dramatically, as soon as he was inside. ‘Alexander, the game is on again!’

  ‘What’s up now?’ Alec asked with a slight frown.

  ‘That letter sounds like a fake, just the same as the confession. It was all typewritten, even the signature, and it was posted from the village. Can you imagine a man in his sane senses deliberately going down to the village to post his letter, when all he had to do was to push it under her door?’

  ‘He might have had others to post as well,’ Alec hazarded, blowing out a great cloud of smoke. ‘Would Mrs Plant’s be the only one?’

  ‘H’m! I never thought of that. Yes, he would. But still, it’s rather unlikely that he should have posted hers as well, I should say. By the way, it was that letter which accounted for her change of attitude before lunch. She knew then that she had nothing to fear from the opening of the safe, you see.’

  ‘Well, how do matters stand now?’

  ‘Exactly as they did before. I don’t see that this really affects it either way. It’s only another instance of the murderer’s cunning. Mrs Plant, and possibly, as you say, one or two others, might raise awkward questions at Stanworth’s sudden death; therefore their apprehensions must be allayed. All that it really does as far as we are concerned, is to confirm the idea that the murderer must have a very intimate knowledge of Stanworth’s private affairs. Of course it shows that the safe was opened that night, and it brings our old friends, the ashes in the hearth, into prominence once more as being in all probability the remains of the blackmailer’s evidence. Curious that that first guess of mine should have turned out to be so near the truth, isn’t it?’

  ‘And what about Jefferson?’ Alec asked quietly.

  ‘Ah, yes, Jefferson. Well, I suppose this affair of the letter and the fact that he did not break in on Mrs Plant and Stanworth in the library that night and consequently was not helped by that lady – I suppose all this gives him credit for rather more brains than I had been willing to concede him; but otherwise I don’t see that his position is affected.’

  ‘You mean, you still think he killed Stanworth?’

  ‘If he didn’t, can you tell me who did?’

  Alec shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ve told you I’m convinced you’re barking up the wrong tree. It’s no good going on repeating it.’

  ‘Not a bit,’ Roger said cheerfully.

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘Exactly what I was before. Have a little chat with him.’

  ‘Rather ticklish business, isn’t it? I mean, when you’re so very uncertain of your ground.’

  ‘Possibly. But so was Mrs Plant for that matter. I think I shall be able to handle friend Jefferson all right. I shall be perfectly candid with him, and I’m willing to wager a small sum that I shall be back here within half an hour with his confession in my pocket.’

  ‘Humph!’ Alec observed sceptically. ‘Are you going to accuse him directly of the murder?’

  ‘My dear Alec! Nothing so crude as that. I shan’t even say in so many words that I know a murder has been committed.
I shall simply ask him a few pointed and extremely pertinent questions. He’ll see the drift of them all right; Master Jefferson is no fool, as we have every reason to know. Then we shall be able to get down to things.’

  ‘Well, for goodness’ sake do bear in mind the possibility (I won’t put it any stronger than that) that Jefferson never did kill Stanworth at all, and walk warily.’

  ‘Trust me for that,’ Roger replied complacently. ‘By the way, did I tell you that Mrs Plant received that letter just before going into lunch? It caught the eight-thirty post from the village.’

  ‘Did it?’ Alec said without very much interest.

  ‘By Jove!’ Roger exclaimed suddenly. ‘What an idiot I am! That’s conclusive proof that Stanworth couldn’t have posted it himself, isn’t it? Fancy my never spotting that point before!’

  ‘What point?’

  ‘Why, the first post out from the village is five o’clock. That letter must have been posted between five and eight-thirty – four hours or more after Stanworth was dead!’

  chapter twenty – five

  The Mystery Finally Refuses to Accept Mr Sheringham’s Solution

  Roger had no time to waste. Mrs Plant, Alec, and himself were all to leave by the train soon after five o’clock; the car would be ready to take them into Elchester at half-past four. Tea was to be at four, and the time was already close on three. He had an hour left in which to disentangle the last remaining threads. As he stood for a moment outside the morning-room door it seemed to Roger as if even this narrow margin were half an hour more than he needed.

  Jefferson was still at work among the piled-up papers. He glanced up abstractedly as Roger entered the room and then smiled slightly.

  ‘Come to offer me a hand again?’ he asked. ‘Devilish good of you, but I’m afraid there’s absolutely nothing I can turn over to you this time.’

  Roger drew a chair up to the other side of the table and seated himself deliberately.

  ‘As a matter of fact, I hadn’t,’ he said slowly. ‘I wanted to ask you one or two questions, Jefferson, if you would be good enough to answer them.’